Time to Switch (Jag Jag Jag!)

gekko · 08-24-2002, 03:37 PM

As anyone who read my last topic knows, I now have Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. It ownz.

Speed is te first thing I noticed. It runs a lot faster than 10.1, and can't even be compared to 10.0. Boot-up is muc much faster. You do lose the happy Mac though

But everything runs faster, OS 9 fast. Jaguar is actually quite fast. Thank you Apple! By far my biggest complaint.

I'm not sure everything they added to the finder. But the built-in search is handy, since you no longer need to open sherlock, which, BTW, no longer allows you to search your HD. And spring-loaded folders. Can we say w00tage? The first time I ever got a Mac I was impressed with spring-loaded folders, and now I get them back! Thank you Steve!!!!! I know they got other stuff, I haven't checked it all out.

iChat is something I had my doubts about. Even just seeing the keynote, I wondered how well it would work for me. My conclusion is that it's more adult oriented, and not made for teenage internet-junkies. It's made for the people who aren't used to chatting online, and referring to someone as "Teh-l33t-hax0r." If you add someone to your address book, their real name appears. When using AIM, the buddy icon appears next to the messages as the "picture." When using it with .Mac, I believe they pick the address book pictures. The bubbles aren't bad, honestly. However, change the picture by the guy to just name, and change from bubbles to text, and you have a setup very similar to the traditional AIM. My biggest complaint is the buddy list. It puts everyone who is online at the top. I have 60+ buddies, so I really need to be able to organize it like in AIM. Then again, I could clean up my buddy list and remove the people I don't talk to. But being able to sort my buddy list would be nice. My only other complaint at the moment is not being able to sign on with both .Mac and AIM at the same time. I currently have no .Mac buddies, and I'll only have around 5 if I added people. I would like to have both at the same time. But I will praise Apple on one end of this, which might even cause me to use it over AIM. In the top corner of your screen, by the clock, in a little menu for iChat. You can choose your status (Online, Offline, Away, etc.) and see a list of avaliable buddies. You can actually change your status to online, and not have iChat open. iChat doesn't actually open unless you select your buddy list or go to message someone. So no open windows if you aren't actually talking. If you just want to sign on and wait for someone to come online, iChat doesn't even need to be running. It's very nice.

Sherlock is something I never used, but now something I will never stop using. Sherlock 3 kicks ass, plain and simple. It no longer allows you to search your HD, which is a bummer, but it adds so much new **** that I can't stop using it, even to mess around. The internet tab is pretty much the same, and I don't know if most of you would care too much about the stocks either. But let's start with yellow pages. Type in pizza, and hit enter. Simple enough, right? Instantly you have all the pizza joints around your house, with phone numbers, and driving directions. You can also add multiple locations, so you can check for your work, or any other place. The movies tab is also very handy. Can sort by movies or by theater. Say you click a local theater, then you get all the movies playing. Click a movie and you get all the times it's playing. On the bottom, you get a nice little preview. Get the theater address and distance from you, then the movie poster, rating, and run time, as well as a nice description at the bottom, and best yet, the movie trailer starts loading!

You can also check for flights, search eBay, look up a word in the dictionary, and translate text. It's handy, very handy.

If you use a Mac, upgrade to Jaguar. If you use a PC, but a new Mac pre-loaded with Jaguar. This OS ownz. And I'm still looking for all the new crap they added. So I'll likely get to posting more impressions later.

-edit-
I forgot to say iCal and iSync are not included because they weren't finished on time. Will be avaliable as a free download in September. And I'm really looking forward to using Address Book and iCal to sync my Palm and iPod all together. No more Palm Desktop and exporting crap.

GameMaster · 08-24-2002, 06:24 PM

I'm pretty sure you have a G4 right? Anyways, congratulations and thanks for sharing your first impressions with those of us who haven't yet bought it? Why I asked if you had a G4 is I have a G3 and 10.1 is pretty slow and I'm wondering if Jaguar on a G3 would really be as fast as OS 9 on my little old iMac. I gotta get this. Sherlock sounds cool. I'm still want to try iChat nevertheless. I'll take your word for it though.

gekko · 08-24-2002, 06:37 PM

I am running it on a 733mhz G4. I have a PowerBook G3, and 10.1 is slow. But I haven't updated to Jaguar yet, and not sure if I'm going to. I've ran into a bug in iTunes 3, so I'm importing the CDs with the problem in from iTunes 2 on my PB

It should definetly be faster than 10.1 on your system, and OS 9 is old. It would be one thing if you were running OS 9 on your system and wondering if you should upgrade to X. It's another if you're running 10.1 already, this can only help.

A little more info on iChat. In the menu at the top of your screen, it lists all your buddies who are online, but if you click on one it sends them a chat invite, instead of a normal message. Weird. iChat also has a spell checker, and can check as you type. Nice.

I'll be sending Apple feedback on iChat as soon as I get a chance. This is a program that despite the bad parts, I still see myself using it over AIM. And if Apple updates it quite a bit, it has great potential.

And I just noticed the finder now has an "apply to all" check box. So you don't need to click "replace" more than once to overwirte everything.

gekko · 08-24-2002, 09:57 PM

Ok, the more I use iChat, the more I like it. I've started to ditch the people on my buddy list I never talk to. So organization isn't as big anymore. Still something I would like.

I just added BaB to my address book, under both his names, and they grouped it, so both aren't on my list. It seems to auto-default to send the message to the name which comes first alphabetically. But I just right clicked on the name, and under the "Accounts" section, I took out his other account. It no longer appears on my buddy list, but I only send a message to the other account.

Buddy icons are nice too. I dragged and dropped an image and it gave me the option to resize it, and move it around. So if I didn't just want to resize it, I coul shrink it a little, and display only a certain portion of the image. Much better than AIMs auto-shrinkage.

Displaying by name or screen name should still be a choice. But it seems nicer having real names on your list. I thought iChat would suck. Silly me

and BTW, some of the smilies are much nicer. Like the cry one.

GameMaster · 08-24-2002, 10:10 PM

Well, I'm planning on getting a new computer soon so I may just wait until I get that and then I'll take the 10.2 CD that comes with and load it on this iMac as well. Who knows though? I'm going to a small Mac retailer tommorrow and you're writing is very convincing and rather tempting too.

When I can it, we'll have to exchange AIM names. I understand you're kind of exclusive about who you converse with though. Oh well.

gekko · 08-24-2002, 10:41 PM

Me? No. Just people who bother me or start talking **** get blocked. Ask Shooter, NGC-RULER, cookiecaper, and all those fools

I think PureEvil and nwoChrisnwo are blocked too. It's not that bad.

Tsunekazu256.

And I've been reading some people's posts saying it's much faster on a G3. So it might be worth the upgrade. And if you have a 16MB card in your old iMac, it'll be a lot faster. But it still runs faster on a G3. But a new computer is also good.

GameMaster · 08-25-2002, 12:54 AM

Well, I still need a little more money so for $100, maybe it's just worth it to buy Jaguar for this Mac for the time being.

Xantar · 08-25-2002, 01:51 AM

Is it true that all PowerMacs are now dual-processor?

Man, my machine is starting to look ancient. And the machine I actually own...well, the less said about that, the better.

Bond · 08-25-2002, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Xantar
Is it true that all PowerMacs are now dual-processor?

Man, my machine is starting to look ancient. And the machine I actually own...well, the less said about that, the better.

Yep, you can get a dual 867MHz, 1GHz, or 1.25GHz.

gekko · 08-25-2002, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Xantar
Is it true that all PowerMacs are now dual-processor?

Ya. But there's a lot of criticism surrounding these new machines. The bandwidth on the motherboard is only 1.6GB, and they need 2.6-3.0GB to be able to take full advantage of the dual processers and DDR RAM.

Apple really needs to roll out the G5s. I got a feeling it'll be almost another year before we see them. Rumors of the Apple PDA/cell phone device coming up. And just looking at the iApps and Apple wanting to be the digital hub, there's only like 1 thing they can add to make it complete in every way.

I got a feeling we'll see the G5s next fall, and they will no longer come with OS 9 in any way.

gekko · 08-25-2002, 02:19 PM

More crap I found about iChat and Mail. You getting bored yet?

The way iChat, Address Book, and Mail work together is really cool. But let's start just with Mail.

Mail, I always thought just kinda sucked. I mean, Entourage has so much more to it. But with Jaguar, I have a feeling Mail will work for me just fine. Entourage has a built in calendar, task list, notes, and address book. That's all cool and all, but I can now use the Address Book and iSync and I got an address book on my iPod, Palm, and it works with Mail. No exporting and importing between programs. The calendar is nothing compared to iCal which I'll have soon. Tasks I can live without. Notes, I'll use stickies. Having things all in one program makes it a lot more convienent, or so I would think. But does Entourage sync the address book with my Palm? Not well. Does it sync with my iPod? Not without using another program to export the contacts to it. It may work, but not easily. Does Entourage sync my calendar with my iPod and Palm? Nope. Although I end up using multiple applications with Apple's stuff, it all works together anyway. My address book works with Mail, iChat, and syncs easily with Palm and iPod. Same with my Calendar.

On to mail itself. No complaints yet, really. I moved my long list of folders (I have very well sorted saved mail), and got all my accounts setup. It imported pretty well from Entourage. It's a pretty nice mail program. I just started training my Junk Mail filter too. Anything missing? Yes. First off, there's no way to send a message in HTML, you can choose plain text and rich text. It can display HTML emails you recieve, so no big loss. Second, and finally, there is no newsgroup reader. Do I ever use them? Nope. I did a few times in my life, but I'm not a newsgroup guy. Entourage also has custom views, something I never used, so not sure if it can be duplicated in Mail. But I have began testing Mail. I'm leaving a copy of the messages on the server and then getting them in Entourage too. So far I like Mail though, and since it uses Address Book, I don't think I want to go back. Mail is free, Entourage is part of Office. I'm surprised Mail is so damn good!

Now with iChat. You can use both AIM and .Mac at the same time. Basically your .Mac name is actually the AIM name 'yourname@mac.com.' So my .Mac name is behlert, if I login as .Mac and send a message to a AIM user, it comes from 'behlert@mac.com.' I did notice however that you don't seem to be logged in as both. I logged in under my AIM name, and 'behlert@mac.com' didn't come up as online on AIM (checking via another screenname, of course). So I believe that if you login as AIM, then only iChat users can see you online by your .Mac name. It's cool though.

Now for how they work together. When you recieve an email from someone in your address book, assuming you have their AIM or .Mac name entered, it checks their status online. So you'll see the green, red, or yellow dot next to the email if they're avaliable, away, or idle. Right clicking on the email gives you the option "Reply with iChat" where it opens iChat for you. But it's nice to see someone is online and you know you can chat with them. Then I noticed in ichat you can click to email someone, assuming you have their email entered in your address book. Then that will pop open mail (or I assume your default email reader) and start a new email addressed to them.

Big deal? No. But anyone with a Palm knows how annoying address books are. I used to have an address book for Palm Desktop, then another for Entourage. I used to have a calender for both too. Now I have a single address book that will work with Mail, my Palm, and my iPod (iChat too). I can have a single calendar work with my iPod and Palm. To the people who never use the iApps, it's no biggie. To the people who do, they could never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go without their Mac. Even using a digital camera on a Mac sucked ass. Then iPhoto came around and I wet myself

My only advice to give people is SWITCH!!!!!!!!!!

-edit-
I forgot. entourage has schedules and stuff you can run too. But most users don't be anything besides have it automatically check for new mail regularly, something you can do in Mail also. Entourage may be better for more of a "power user" who does a lot more than check mail. But for the average person, Mail does everything they want and more. I'll keep testing it over the next couple of weeks. But Mail works wonders so far.

Also, iChat doesn't send away messages. Only bug I've noticed so far. It appears in the profile, but won't send them when people send you a message. Also, no way to edit your profile in iChat. Could use some updating by Apple in the near future. Hopefully Apple puts some time into it, this program has a lot of potential.

Mechadragon · 08-26-2002, 10:10 PM

This convinces me, next computer I buy will most definetly be a Mac.